Ah, the sweet hum of the dehydrator is in the background... One week from today we'll be sleeping under the stars in WCPP on Glenn. So, looking forward to unplugging and catching some fish. :) See you soon Red Lake!!!!

Chris --

Probably miss you all together. I'm heading north in 2 weeks and 1 day (but its a 2 day drive). Hope you find the fishing on Glenn to your satisfaction ... treated me nice the last time I was there.

Enjoy your trip! Sounds like you'll get to take advantage of some of Harlan's (and crew) early season portage clearing. I'll likely be too far north to see any early clearing work.

Hope to see a trip report of your adventure. Its a beautiful stretch of water (on many levels).

dd

quote McVacek: "Ah, the sweet hum of the dehydrator is in the background... One week from today we'll be sleeping under the stars in WCPP on Glenn. So, looking forward to unplugging and catching some fish. :) See you soon Red Lake!!!!"

Now its my turn. Won't be sleeping under the stars in a week, but will be starting the journey north (which takes 2 full days of driving). I won't even been to McVacek's home state on the first day, but it is what it is and ultimately well worth the effort to make the trip.

We'll be using a less conventional entry point for our trip fly-in/fly-out trip. Headed to the northern tier of lakes in the park with our drop off on Mary's lake ... to be extracted 2 weeks later at Bigshell Lake. Our selection was based on two considerations ... ease of travel (we are doing a lot of basecamping and will likely only do day trip portages for the first 10 days) and access to smallies (Bloodvein River is the only section of the park with a documented population). Of course, knowing there are eight documented pictograph sites in the area of this route is also a positive. Furthermore, knowing walleye are present in all of these waters is a distinct bonus.

REALLY looking forward to the trip (and my dehydrator now sits silently on the shelf).

dd

All the best and happy eating!!

I am in so much envy of you I can't hardly type. We're going into Mexican Hat in late Aug, and that seems an eternity away. Saying have fun is not enough, but I'll say it anyway. Take care, travel safe and ENJOY [looking for a trip report when you get home]. FRED

I'm down to 4 days. Going into Leano on Saturday morning for a week. Base camp on mexican hat. Plan to get up to Glenn. Good walleye lake the way it sounds. My first trip to WCPP...

quote Bdubguy: "I'm down to 4 days. Going into Leano on Saturday morning for a week. Base camp on mexican hat. Plan to get up to Glenn. Good walleye lake the way it sounds. My first trip to WCPP..."

That's a real nice section of the park. I've been thru there twice (so far).

Enjoy your trip ... Pretty country. The drive out to Leano ... Not so much.

dd

You have almost limitless possibilities, for every species you go after, not to mention the wildlife, scenery, and especially the tranquility.
I myself have 37 days until we enter into the park. Almost complete with preperations. Have a great time, hope weather cooperates. Looking forward in hearing of your trip, and also the water levels.

Heading north in the AM. I should be back on the grid in about 3 weeks (if I can drag myself out of the park).

dd

Glad to hear others here will be in the same week as my crew.

We are flying in next Saturday (the 8th) into Dunstan, Wanda, and then down to Royd for our eventual fly-out (group of 4). I just turned the dehydrator off (sweet potatoes, white potatoes, onions, apples this year) and spooled up my reels with new line. Hoping for good weather and some crazy walleye and laker fishing.

Thanks Harlan for your help with the portage clearing so far.

Well, we survived our 2nd trip to WCPP. It was a great base camp/fly-in trip! :) We caught tons of fish, ate fish twice daily, saw some wildlife, and had a couple camp toddies. We'll have to write up our trip report once we have some free time again. We were honorary portage clearers and cleared the portages between Optic and Glenn. It was insane to see those portages just destroyed, but have no fear, they are SUPER clear now! We were such awesome portage clearers that they left us in the park an extra night too! ;) As always, Harlan's outfitting was much appreciated and top notch.

Here are a couple pics....


Our new favorite appetizer: Bacon wrapped walleye over the campfire


Here we are!

quote Bdubguy: "I'm down to 4 days. Going into Leano on Saturday morning for a week. Base camp on mexican hat. Plan to get up to Glenn. Good walleye lake the way it sounds. My first trip to WCPP..."

OK this is the exact route we'll be taking in Aug. cant wait to chat with you when you get back, please be careful, have fun, travel safe. FRED

Con Sarn IT!!! Bacon wrapped walleye?
and here I sit in my office at 7:30am on a beautiful morning...@#$@!*&(^%$%()&!!!

Glad to hear everything went well. ;)

Got one more day of driving before I'm actually home, but here is a brief description of the trip.

Flew into Mary's Lake (June 5th) and visited Artery, Barclay, Sabourin and Simeon lakes. Pick up was on South Sabourin (June 18th).

Fishing: Excellent. Caught several pike over 38" with the top one coming in at 43". Walleye were plentiful and could be caught just about any day ... once you located where they were schooling ... they were more shallow than expected. Had 1 afternoon where I bagged over 40 walleye. I also scored a few smallmouth bass in the Southern Sabourin/Northern Simeon area. Not plentiful, but aggressive. No real size as the largest came in at about 18"

Weather: Chamber of Commerce stuff. Highs generally at the mid-70's mark, with lows in the lower 50's to high 40's. While it did spit a time or two, I don't think I'd actually call it rain. (I definitely got wetter from having a pike splash me.)

Portages: If you are going into an area that has not been visited by those clearing portages, expect to deal with blowdowns. For example, one of the portages from Mary's to Artery Lake is listed at 14 rods. No real trail was visible from all the blowdowns and the traverse took about an hour (of course that includes some clearing and scouting time).

Bugs: Evening skeets, but amazingly few bugs about. Of course, you did see the odd gnat or two and a few flies ... but way less than expected.

... more when I file an actual trip report.

dd

Welcome home Wayne.

Welcome home!!! :) Crazy when you can't find even the short portages... Sounds like a fun trip. Feeling a little jealous!

Less than two weeks until I'm up there. Reading your summary gets the juices flowing. Nice to hear the bugs aren't horrible. Nice report on the fishing. How about water levels?

quote gnegard: "Less than two weeks until I'm up there. Reading your summary gets the juices flowing. Nice to hear the bugs aren't horrible. Nice report on the fishing. How about water levels? "

I'd have to classify the water level as average. It had been high for a couple of seasons (esp. 2009-10). This did result in the demise of some trees that were set low to the water. That, plus extra early snow caused a large number of trees to snap off about 20-30 foot up. All rain storms seemed to go south of us during our trip, so without more rain, water levels will surely fall.

Surface temperature of the lakes we fished was rather warm (68-70), yet the fishing action was relatively shallow ... 5-10 feet depth for all species caught. I use a large white twister tail grub (Kalin) for almost all of my fishing (casting, trolling, jigging). However, the lakes (and river) in the area we visited was relatively shallow ... I don't think we pinged anything deeper than 35 feet. Of course, many of the lakes in the park are quite deep (and support an active laker population).

Hope you have a great trip.

dd